Brief Description of the Prior Art
Many types of fishing jigs have been heretofore proposed, and a number of these have a relatively heavy or dense body portion which acts as a stabilizing weight, and also acts as an anchor point for the eye to which the retrieving line is secured. A second eye secured to the body portion functions as a swivel situs to which a hook is swivelly connected. Some jigs of this type also have buck tails or skirts attached to the lure body for the purpose of disguising the hook and/or attracting fish to the lure.
Upperman U.S. Pat. No. 3,315,304 depicts and describes a fishing lure which has a buck tail secured by strands of wire filament to the after portion of a hard rigid body. The buck tail functions to partially disguise a conventional or standard fishing hook which is rigidly attached to the body and cannot swivel. One end of the fishing hook forms an eye by which a retrieving line can be attached to the lure. This lure does not resemble the present invention in its design or function, except in the broadest terms.
In Cressey U.S. Pat. No. 1,612,264, the trolling spoon there shown includes a skirt forming a screen of fronds or feathers which partially disguise a hook. The feathers or fronds are secured by a ring around the after portion of the lure body.
In De Zeeuw U.S. Pat. No. 3,037,316, the fishing jig there shown includes a body having a swedged and downwardly protuberant belly, and has a retrieving line eye secured to the upper forward end of the body upon which the belly is formed. The rear or after part of the lure body has an elongated worm secured around the body by means of a wrap of wire or filament, and this worm is impaled upon a hook 24 and extends rearwardly from the hook.
Duncan U.S. Pat. No. 4,414,772, depicts and describes a top water fishing lure which has a rigid body having an elongated, relatively small diameter tail portion, and a protuberant belly portion closer to the forward end of the lure body. An eye for the attachment of a retrieving line to the lure is secured to the upper forward portion of the body. A flexible, resilient elongated tail, which is twisted so that it will undergo a whipping motion during retrieve, is secured around the rear portion of the lure body, and functions to partially disguise a hook which is rigidly secured to the rear of the rigid lure body. Instead of the elongated worm element, a plastic skirt made up of a plurality of fronds or filaments can be utilized for securing the forward end of the skirt or its waist portion around the lure body near the rear end thereof.
Arbogast U.S. Pat. No. 2,111,020, discloses an artificial fishing bait which includes a buck tail or skirt secured to a protuberant portion at the rear end of a hard body part of the lure. The body includes a protuberant belly which projects downwardly, and which has secured, to one side thereof, an eye by which a retrieving line can be swivelly connected to the forward end of the lure body. A hook projects into the rear end of the body portion and is disguised by being located within the fronds of the skirt.
A fishing lure having a body shape slightly resembling the body of the lure of the present invention is the lure shown in Berry U.S. Pat. No. 2,510,769. The body portion of the Berry fishing lure is cut away so that it has a forwardly facing surface which projects at an acute angle to the longitudinal axis of the lure.